A variety of machines or apparatus have been developed for extracting juice from citrus fruit or the like. Juice extraction apparatus as contemplated in connection with the present invention is exemplified, for example, by U.S. Pat. No. 2,631,625 issued Mar. 17, 1953 to Wells and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. Juice extraction apparatus disclosed, for example, by this patent included two coextensive continuous conveyor belts carrying opposed pairs of cups arranged in facing relation with each other. The paired cups diverged in the midregion of the conveyors and converged again at the opposite end of the conveyors. A rotary feeder operating on a horizontal axis received new fruit from a side hopper and loaded the fruit into the pairs of cups just before the cups close toward each other. A knife sliced the fruit in the closed pairs of cups at one end of the conveyors. The other end of the two conveyors straddled a reamer assembly rotating on a horizontal axis and having reamer elements projecting from its opposite sides for entering into nested engagement with the cups to ream or extract juice from the citrus fruit halves.
Apparatus of the type briefly described above operated at high speeds with each machine being capable of processing in the range of approximately 600 to 800 citrus fruit per minute.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,297 issued Mar. 12, 1974 to Holbrook and also assigned to the assignee of the present invention further disclosed a preferred conveyor of hinged construction for mounting the cups in circumferential relation upon the conveyor assembly or carousel. The hinged conveyor disclosed in this patent has been found to be very satisfactory in achieving accurate alignment between the cups and reamers. Accordingly, the conveyor design of the above patent has been widely employed in juice extractors of the type contemplated by the present invention. In connection with the present invention, it is noted that the conveyor of the above patent provided very good alignment when all parts are new. However, as with all such machinery, alignment tended to get progressively worse as various parts experienced wear within the apparatus. Accordingly, there has been a long recognized need for improving such conveyor apparatus particularly to eliminate high wear points tending to reduce accurate alignment between the cups and reamers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,421,021 issued Dec. 20, 1983 to Holbrook and also assigned to the assignee of the present invention is further illustrative of the prior art in this regard since it combined the hinged conveyor of the patent noted immediately above with the conveyor construction of the wells patent first noted above.
Rohm et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,500 issued Jan. 7, 1975 was illustrative of an attempt to minimize a backlash between the rotary reamer assembly and annular conveyor carousel in apparatus of the type disclosed above for further developing or maintaining desired alignment between the reamer elements and cups. For this purpose, individual forked elements were provided to engage pins on the respective cups at a maximum reaming position for the purpose noted above of minimizing backlash between the rotary reamer assembly and annular carousel. The forked elements of the above patent accomplished this purpose in that they did minimize backlash. However, they did not eliminate backlash between the cups and reamers. Furthermore, components in this design continue to be subject to extensive wear, again resulting in diminished alignment between the cups and reamer elements as noted above.
Accordingly, there has been found to remain a need for improvements in the design of such juice extraction apparatus for the purpose of achieving and maintaining proper alignment between the cups and reamer elements during extended operation of the juice extracting machinery. This need has been further recognized with the realization that the quality of citrus juice can be further improved by maintaining low oil content in the juice. However, in addition to minimizing oil extraction from the citrus fruit halves, it is also, of course, important to achieve maximum or optimum extraction of juice from the fruit for obvious reasons. In any event, it is thus even more important to assure proper alignment and nested engagement between the cups and reamer elements during continued operation of the juice extraction machinery.